The lights I took camping this weekend...

This past weekend my son and I went on a camping trip with his Cub Scout pack to Victoria Bryant State Park near Royston, Georgia.

I figured this would be an excellent chance to carefully select and use a number of lights, and I wasn't wrong! It turned out that there is absolutely no electricity near the campsite (no HPS or Halogen floods /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif) plus there was heavy cloud cover and a lunar eclipse Sat. night, so we were able to experience almost absolute darkness from about 7:00pm on. A flasholic couldn't have asked for better conditions! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Now, when planning for the trip I imagined I'd need three types of light. The first, a long running task light of some sort, second a tough light with decent throw and fair battery life and finally some sort of extraordinary custom light (I am a flashaholic after all /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif) with either incredible throw or outstanding beam quality. Secondary to all of this was a desire to stay with only one or two battery types if possible and to stay as lightweight so as not to be weighed down while hiking.

After much consideration I finally picked:
1) Task Light - Arc AA
2) Tough light - Princeton Tec Tec-40
3) Flashaloic light - Inova X5T modded with a Q3K?, DB700 and Fraen LP /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Also along for the trip was my son's generic plastic 4AA spot/lantern (will post pics later), and a Streamlight Twin Task 2L that was in the glovebox of the car.

General Impressions:
1) Arc AA - This light was used less than I had expected. Most of the time it stayed suspended from the top of the tent as a soft flood light. It did an acceptable job of illuminating the sleeping bags, but my son's el-cheapo 4AA lantern/spot was used more for this purpose. The Arc AA really came into its own when we had to do some reading in front of the bonfire and then again when I woke up late in the night and I needed to check my watch.

2) Tec-40 - This was the "go to" light for my son (he's six and can be pretty rough on flashlights). Of all the lights we had I was least worried about the Tec-40 getting damaged or lost. Not only is it basically indesctructible, it was also the cheapest of the quality lights that we had. It was definitely brighter than any of the other scouts' plastic (or M*g) 2-4D lights and displayed very few of the artifacts present in all of the smooth reflectored lights. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif It was a good light but the tight spot and dim spill limited it's usefullness to me. My son didn't seem to care though as it came in very handy during "flashlight tag".

3) Custom X5T - I had a grin on my face everytime I used this light. The bright Luxeon-sourced light and Fraen "low profile" optics combine to form an extraordinary camping and hiking light. This was the best light in the camp for illuminating trails at distances up to and beyond 100 yards (remember, this was almost absolute darkness) [EDIT: this was probably more like 50 yards]. It was also the whitest light of the group thanks to the perfectly white LS in it. The beam was a tad on the narrow side for close range work (removing chocolate bars and graham crackers from their wrappers, etc) but for everything else it was absolutely perfect. I escorted one of the parents and her son to their car a quarter mile from camp and this little light's cone-shaped beam illuminated the trail and road so far ahead of us that we had absolutely no problem avoiding holes, tree roots and the occasional mud puddle. I'm grinning just thinking about it. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif Thanks again Chief Wiggum!

Also worth mentioning was the SL TwinTask 2L that I finally pulled from the glovebox after the bonfire. If I hadn't had the modded X5T this would've been the light I carried all the time. The semi-flood incandescent was a great help in navigating trails and watching for other camper's guy lines. The 3 small LEDs were perfect for working on the above mentioned chocolate and graham crackers. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif I just don't like the single button that squences from "off" to "LED" to "off" to "incandescent". Two buttons please!

As far as batteries go, you can see I kept it to CR123's and Lithium/Alkaline AA's. I had six 123's and at least 24 AA's with me (including those in the various lights) so I was more than covered for a single night. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif

Of all the lights I own and considered taking (Streamlight Propolymer 3C, D Mag's, Brinkmann w/ Opalec NewBeam, Streamlight Scropion, Mini-Mag w/ Q2 MadMax & McFlood, etc) I think I made the right choices and never felt myself wanting more (or less) light in any given situation. Next time I might take a headlamp and a decent lantern though... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Thanks for reading, I'll try to post pictures later. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Jon

i also use the PT40 as my camping/hiking light..

it's so underestimated!

i'm surprised the Arc AA got so little use.. and that Inova mod sounds awesome!

i luv these stories.

did you do any climbing while on the trip? and on future trips, do you think you'll take a light with more flood capabilities?

sorry to pester!

Ryan, no we didn't do any climbing. And yes, the 40 by far gives the best bang for the buck in the under $15 range.

As for flood, I mentioned I might take a lantern next time, although my son's el-cheapo lantern/spot combo did a fine job as an area light in the tent. The combination of the campfires and handheld flashlights was more than adequate for everything we did outside the tent.

I might have replaced the Arc AA with an Opalec NewBeam to provide a brighter and wider flood without ruining night vision. Unfortunately the only one I have is permanently mounted in a Brinkmann NexStar and is a bit too heavy to justify being thrown in a backpack. I think a Streamlight ProPolymer 4AA 7 LED might be a good, small flood but I don't own one. My ProPolymer 3C was just too big for this particular trip. Similarly, my Q2 MadMax w/ McFlood would've been a very nice small flood but I didn't want to risk running through batteries that quickly.

Jon

I too love my PT40. I overdrive a Radio Shack KPR103 in mine. It's lasted forever already so I have no fear of the overdrive, and it does make it quite a bit brighter and whiter. I know the simplicity of the twist on/off is part of what gives it it's rugedness, but I wish it had some kind of clickie switch. My head is quite difficult to twist with one hand. I was thinking a slightly smaller o-ring may help, or maybe it just needs to be broken in a bit more.

Sounds like you had a great trip. Perfect weekend like you said with the lunar eclipse. What was the weather like there? It was quite cold here in NJ, actually droping to below freezing on Saturday night.

Sounds like you choose your lights wisely. How far was your hike in? That always determins what type and how many lights I'm willing to carry. Being a flashaholic I usually choose to bring more lights thatn food. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I went camping about two weeks ago with scouts also. [The annual fall family camping trip] My number one go-to light is the streamlight 4aa led. It is almost as bright as LS lights[which I have.]and is very cheap to run. When walking on paths it would illuminate up to 50 feet in pitch-black conditions. I had many people remark just how bright it was so I would have to pull the heavy artillary out! The L4 just blew everyone away and the TL2 led was pretty good to. Also I would highly reccomend the new matrix 2. It had great run time and was perfect for up close or far-away.

KartRacer, the hike was minimal (unfortunately). I planned for the worst and was surprised that I actually parked about 100 yards from the site (they put all the youngest "tiger" cubs way at the front of the site). Weather wasn't too bad but it did get chilly by GA standards - into the low 40's I think. Next time I'm bringing an air mattress!!!

Blademan, how's it going? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif I thought the SL 4AA Led would be a good camping light. Where did you guys go?

Jon

What no headlight?? Wouldn't go camping without one, usually a Petzl Tikka, but I'll try out my new Petzl Myo 3 next time.
If I need a lot of light I'll use the bicycle light (I'd rather not carry 14 kg on my back, and camping by car is cheating!)

P.S.: Right now I don't have to go camping to play with my lights: we're doing inventory, and I got the hall with only one row of fluorescents, and floor-to-ceiling racks /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif